Welcome, welcome, sit down and we shall talk about our lord and saviour Kruphix. What does he offer you say? Well EVERYTHING lad! A solid mana storage plan! Infinite card storage! Indestructible warrantee money back guaranteed!
Introduction & Deck History
Why trust in Kruphix?
Do you like your creatures BIG and your hands FULL and your spells FLASHY? Is your middle name TIMMY? Well, have you come to the right place, Kruphix will see you immediately in his office.
WELL TIMMY, HERE IS THY NEW PLAN, THOU SHALT RAMP, THOU SHALT SUMMON YOUR MINIONS AND THEN THOU SHALT DRAWWWWWWWWWW-Kruphix
Really its as simple as that. Ramp ramp ramp, play your threats that draw more threats, repeat.-You like commanders that compliment your overall strategy and not BE your overall strategy-You like Big mana Big creatures Big hands-You enjoy proactive play
Why this deck might not be for you
(Why you might be an unbelieving heathen)-You like decks built around commanders-You like being reactive with your mana open and counters ready-You are looking for a control oriented Kruphix build where you never use all that mana you saved up
My brief stint with Sea monsters and Prophets
Initially Kruphix was built to summon horrors from the deep with Quest for Ula's Temple. I was tired of my decks winning via infinite combos, I wanted to let my deck play out, not tutor for the same few cards every turn and go whoops guess I win. Sadly, the sea monstas often arrived too little too late, in a 40 life format giant 7/11 or 8/8 vanilla beat sticks just could not keep up in my relatively competitive meta. Also, I found non interactive beat sticks to be boring (how I didnt realise that earlier I dunno). Following the quelling of the leviathans kruphix became a creature based pile of U/G goodstuff held together by his Prophet of Kruphix. The deck was functional occasionally fun but still didnt feel amazing to play (unless you know who was out but relying on one card is never a good idea). Fast forward a year Prophet was BANNED, a part of me died inside. After 3 days of grieving I set out to recapture the explosiveness of ages past. I wasnt about to cut the creatures and go control, instead I focussed on reshaping the deck to do one thing and one thing only. I cut cute interactions (Perplexing Chimera, pet cards (
Summoning Trap
, anything that didnt contribute to the three basic needs, ramping, drawing and GOING BIG AS FAST AS I COULD.
Alternative Commanders
Prime Speaker Zegana Zegana decks primarily want to base themselves around Zegana as the main draw engine with blink effects +1/+1 shenanigans and strong midrange high power creatures to maximise the cards drawn. More general reliant and midrange, NOT BIG ENUFF.
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary Its a combo general, go away, I dont want to only play the same few cards every single game, (If you do maybe this deck might not be for you) I WANT TO PLAY ALL OF THEM.Experiment Kraj, Vorel of the Hull Clade, Ezuri, Claw of Progress Simic counters shenanigans, different deck, different game plan.
Strategy Shmategy
I thought weve been through this? Ramp, play creatures, draw more ramp and creatures, repeat. What? Details? OK FINE.
Game plan
Early Game (1-5 mana)
RAMP, I cannot emphasize this enough. You cannot play magic without mana and this deck is no exception. Your opening hand should ideally have at least 2 sources of early game ramp and 2-3 lands. The aim is to hit 5-7 mana as soon as possible as that is where we start being able to play our threats to begin the Snowballing vomit that is kruphix. As to when to drop kruphix, do so the moment you find that you can no longer ramp any further for now, Usually this will be after you play your 4/5 mana ramp like skyshroud and lotus petal.While cards like Elvish Piper are in the deck, they are primarily meant to played in the midgame to compound the number of playable threats per turn as an alternative form of ramp. I wouldnt recommend keeping a hand of Piper fatties and one or no ramp. While tempting it is just too vulnerable to removal and disruption.
Mid Game (5-12 mana)
Begin developing your board but KEEP RAMPING, I am not kidding, this deck is mana hungry and with kruphix no drop of mana goes to waste. The more lands you bring out earlier the more total mana you will have to vomit your hand onto the board, also deck thinning is always good.At this point you will find that you begin to have mana to play a threat with a few accompanying utility cards per turn. Try not to be over aggressive at this point, just because you can Woodfall Primus that land doesnt mean you should an incur wrath of said player. You can always do it multiple times later with deadeye. What you should aim to play are your utility fatties, stuff like sphinx of uthun,
Vorinclex
, cards that let you draw into and play more fatties.
Late Game (12- infinity and beyond!)
Welcome to the big leagues! Youve made it! At this point you will have a surplus of both cards and mana, all thats left to do is to find a path to victory.
Closing out the game
There are currently 3 routes to winning, beat down, lockdown and combo. Beat down and lockdown executed in concert is the most natural route to victory for the deck.Usual suspect Craterhoof Behemoth is the enabler for most beatdown victories. While the deck does boast high p/t creatures few aside from the eldrazis actually have relevant combat evasion abilities and will struggle to beat through with token walls and blockers in general. Abuse the behemoth with Deadeye Navigatoror pair him with Avenger of Zendikar or simply Slam him down onto an already menacing board.For lockdown Sunder is by far the most brutal, remove your opponents mana and they will be hard pressed to deal with your board of threats. Yes you wont have lands too but you will have lots of big scary creatures. Also unlike your opposition you have a reliquary tower for a commander allowing you to more easily replay dem lands.Cyclonic Rift and
Temporal Cascade
without the draw 7 half is also positively evil. If your opponents werent jealous of your resources before they sure will be once they are in top deck mode.
Combos the necessary evil
There are currently two kinds of combo in the deck:
Infinite turns Deadeye Navigator + Eternal Witness + Time Stretch the less reliable due to tutors in the deck being creature focussed. Mostly a convenient interaction that comes up once in a while, use it to win if u can but do not hold off on casting these cards to save them for the combo.
Infinite mana Palinchron enuff said. The more reliable of the two since the combo can be established using only creatures, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger, Deadeye Navigator. The deck will almost have a way to keep spending mana so this should easily lead to a win via mana sinks or via drawing and playing one of the other win conditions.Tooth and Nail also becomes an instant win condition by searching for Eternal Witness
+
Palinchron
, recasting for Deadeye Navigator and throwing every creature onto the field from there.
Dealing with counters
Often, unless you are up against 3 blue decks, your resources will outnumber theirs easily. As such they cannot afford to counter everything you play. Against good players, abuse their fear of your bigger threats to develop your board else they hand you the win. Eg. If they counter your Magus of the Future they risk letting you resolve your Tooth and Nail and if they don't you get to further develop your board. Another answer lies in the cards that cheat your threats into play Elvish Piper,Quicksilver Amulet with special mention to Myojin of Life's Web which often is a win condition all by itself. The 4 Eldrazi also generate value on cast regardless of counters.
Politics
Honestly, you are kinda screwed in this aspect of the game. Your often aggressive board state leads to your deck playing arch enemy against the rest of the table. (It is kind of hard to convince the other players you have their well-being in mind when u consistently play 3 or 4 threats per turn and constantly have a full hand) Hence, your one goal and consideration should always be how fast you can establish a dominating board state and aggro/lockdown/combo out your opponents.
##Deck
Card Choices (strong synergies)
Glen Elendra Archmage/ Woodfall Primus + Novijen, Heart of Progress repeatable persist
Avenger of Zendikar + Craterhoof Behemoth everyone knows this
Deadeye Navigator and ETB
Greater Good + Myojin of Life's Web sac with divinity trigger on stack
Dryad Arbor + Green Sun's Zenith turn one ramp is best ramp/ side note, Kiora, Master of the Depths can untap a land + Dryad Arbor effectively a second garruk
Kiora's Follower lots of stuff tap in this deck, mostly mana and it can get quite insane
Cyclonic Rift/Sunder +
Temporal Cascade
Do not draw 7 and this is beyond evil.
Card options
To conclude, while this deck can most certainly be accused of playing many format staples it most certainly isnt a directionless pile of good stuff. It has a focused game plan and devotes itself fully to ensuring that it will always be able to give your enemies the business.
Any feedback is welcome!
edit deck list has been updated but i have had no time to edit the descriptions as of yet, hence some cards that have already been cut are still being referenced.
